


Time Cannot Erase

by NamelesslyNightlock



Series: Going Down Swinging [99]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hopeful Ending, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Feels, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Boyfriend, M/M, Memories, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sad, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29714658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: The loss of a friend leaves a hole that is impossible to fill, and an ache that never quite goes away. Tony’s best friend wasn’t technically a living being, but that doesn’t make the loss hurt any less.
Relationships: Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Going Down Swinging [99]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1330490
Comments: 31
Kudos: 159





	Time Cannot Erase

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt** — _“Don’t look at me like that.”_

Tony’s heart was beating much too hard, his breath coming in short pants. It felt a bit like his stomach was on a mission to tear itself up through his throat, cutting off every word he could have thought to utter.

He could feel every eye in the room on him, all but one horribly sympathetic. He didn’t want their pity. He didn’t need it. He had enough pity for himself to last more than a thousand lifetimes.

“Anthony?” Loki asked. His tone was concerned, worried, confused– a far cry from the light-hearted question he had given voice to only moments before.

_What happened to that AI you had when I met you? JARVIS, wasn’t it?_

JARVIS.

It wasn’t that Tony had forgotten him. He couldn’t, not ever. JARVIS had been too big a part of his life, and there was not a single day that Tony didn’t think of him. But… he didn’t talk about JARVIS. Not anymore.

Loki shifted on the couch, looking as if he was going to reach out for Tony– and that cracked Tony out of the haze he had been lost in.

“Sorry,” he said roughly, standing from his own seat in a quick and sudden movement that managed to be both jerking and fluid at the same time. “I think I need to go.” He didn’t wait for a response, he just headed straight for the elevator, just needing to be _away._

He could hear the others – the few Avengers who were left after the mess that followed the Accords – speaking to Loki about it, using low, warning tones that scratched at Tony the wrong way, even with everything that he was already feeling. Even Thor still seemed to think that Loki was up to no good, that he was playing a trick, that he was just biding his time and playing the prisoner on Earth as he served his sentence, helping the Avengers to ‘redeem’ himself– and, maybe that he was just with Tony for a bit of fun, or something. Or maybe that he was just playing at a bit of manipulation. Tony had even seen Hill shoot him sympathetic glances every now and then, as if she thought that he had been duped.

Tony hated it, because he _knew_ that wasn’t the case.

They hadn’t been together long, only a couple of months– hardly anything by Asgardian standards, surely. But by _Tony’s_ standards, it might as well have been a lifetime, especially since he was rather sure that he’d managed to find the person he wanted to be with _for_ a lifetime.

And yeah, maybe most people would say that’s not long enough to know for sure, that they hadn’t spent enough time getting to know each other yet. But… Loki understood Tony like no one else ever had, they just clicked together. It wasn’t like it was always smooth sailing, that would have been literally too good to be true, too perfect to believe. They argued, and they had differing opinions, but it was in a way that meant they pushed each other to their limits, making them both be the best that they could be… and then there was always a warm embrace to come home to, to relax into.

But, even so. They _had_ been together only a few months, and it was moments like these when Tony was suddenly reminded of just how short a time it really had been. That even though they understood one another, there was still so much about each other that they just didn’t _know._

“Anthony.”

Tony sighed at the sound of his full name spoken in that low tone. Loki was the only one Tony would allow to call him that without getting snapped at, if only because Loki somehow made it sound like an endearment. No one else could ever manage that.

It made him soften in a way that he never would have around anyone else, and he looked up from where his hands had become twisted in his bedsheets to see Loki standing in the doorway.

“Sorry for just running out on you like that,” Tony sighed. “I know that it was probably… well, I’m sorry that I—”

“There is no need to apologise,” Loki cut in. And then, going against his own words he added– “I am sorry for what I said. I did not know—”

“Exactly,” Tony cut in, not really wanting to talk about it. But he didn’t mean to be so sharp, and he softened his next words with a sigh. “Yeah, you didn’t know. It’s okay, Loki. I’m not upset with you, I promise.”

“But you _are_ upset.”

Tony glanced away at that, hoping that Loki wouldn’t push. Because if Loki pushed, then Tony would probably get mad, and then he might say something that he regretted. Something he didn’t mean, or…

Well, Tony had a bit of a history of pushing away the people he cared about. That was all. And, he didn’t want that to happen with Loki. Not ever.

But Loki didn’t say anything else on the matter, and he didn’t try to make Tony say anything either. He just sat down beside Tony on the bed, and he hesitated for a moment before asking– “Do you mind if I hold you?”

Did Tony mind? That, that sounded like the best possible thing, actually– and Tony wasted not a single moment in leaning toward his lover, curling against his chest and relaxing as Loki’s arms wrapped around his waist. There was no place that he felt more comfortable than in Loki’s arms, and… well, as his breath left him in a low sigh, it was like the words just fell from the tip of his tongue in the very same moment, before his mind had even entirely finished forming them. Before he had even decided that there was something to be said at all.

And he only meant – as much as he had _meant_ to say anything, anyway – to tell Loki what had happened. He was rather sure that Loki had heard it from the others anyway, had been told how Tony had been unable to look out for his most loyal friend, how JARVIS had been torn to pieces by a creation that… well, Ultron hadn’t entirely been _Tony’s_ , but he was modest enough to know that it was at least partially his _fault_. And he’d meant to end it after that, to just let the darker thoughts fade like they usually did. Eventually.

But as soon as Tony started talking about JARVIS, it was as if he could not stop. And instead of just telling Loki what had _happened_ , Tony found himself spilling out everything, the floodgates open wide as near on every feeling he’d had in the months and years since it happened began to cascade out of him.

His grip on Loki tightened as he spoke, his hold on his lover the only thing grounding him as he spoke out the darkest parts of his mind, as he admitted some of his greatest shames.

He started at the beginning, despite his muddled mind. He told Loki all about JARVIS’ loyalty, his impertinence, his _kindness._ He told him about how JARVIS had been there with him through it all, through the thick and the thin, through Iron Man, Obadiah, the Mandarin and the Avengers. He told him about Sokovia, about the sceptre, about Ultron.

About how JARVIS had tried to save them all, had bought them some time, and about how, despite it all… JARVIS had managed to hold on by the smallest of threads.

Tony wasn’t stupid, and he certainly hadn’t been stupid enough to leave his closest friend in the world without a backup, not when he knew intimately just how fragile data could be. And JARVIS– well, he had always been worse than a computer virus. He had lived _everywhere._ Ultron might have shattered his base code but JARVIS had still existed on the internet, and he had hidden in the depths of the web, fighting back in his own little-big ways as he waited for Tony to find him again.

Tony had. And then, he had betrayed JARVIS _again._

Because… yes. Tony had then uploaded JARVIS’ code into Vision’s body, so that he would have a far kinder foundation than Ultron. But, Vision wasn’t JARVIS. Even if the guy hadn’t admitted as much himself, it was painfully clear in the way that Vision looked at Tony as if he were a stranger.

JARVIS had been Tony’s companion through the thick and the thin. He _never_ would have looked at Tony with such… well, it wasn’t even just distance, was it? Sometimes, Vision looked at Tony with _contempt._

And that _hurt._

As Tony spoke the words, the pain lanced through him like a knife to the heart, tears stinging in his eyes before falling to soak into the material of Loki’s shirt.

Loki just held him, not saying a word. He made soothing sounds as he stroked Tony’s hair, as he held him as close as he could and just let Tony get it all out. But Tony knew that Loki would have been listening, that he would have taken in every word– and he knew that Loki would be there for him, no matter how terrible Tony’s admissions.

And it was only when Tony had been quiet for a while, as his sobs slowed and his breathing calmed that Loki leaned back– just slightly, just so that he could swipe his thumb over Tony’s cheek, catching a couple of tears.

But after everything– Tony found he almost couldn’t take it.

“Please don’t,” he said, his voice hoarse as it ached through his throat. “Don’t look at me like that.”

He didn’t need or want any more pity, especially not from Loki– but Loki’s expression did not change.

“Anthony,” he said, his voice low and soothing in a way that Tony was fairly certain no one else ever got to hear. “What happened to JARVIS was not your fault.”

“No, I betrayed him,” Tony denied, pulling away in a small but sharp movement– and Loki’s hand fell to Tony’s shoulder instead. “I let him down. He was willing to give his _life_ to help us, and then I… I threw away everything that JARVIS almost died for—”

“You did not throw it away,” Loki said firmly. “You did _not._ You wanted the Accords signed because you believed that they would make the world a better place, and _that_ is what JARVIS fought to preserve, is it not? Had JARVIS seen you then, I think he would have been proud.”

Tony shuddered at that, and he wished that he hadn’t pulled away. Even though Loki’s hand was heavy on his shoulder, he felt the loss of Loki’s touch on his skin rather keenly. But at the same time, he half felt like that was a comfort he didn’t deserve.

“He was willing to give himself up so that we could create Vision,” Tony muttered. “And Vision doesn’t even _like_ me. He agreed with the concept of the Accords, but where is he now? He’s gone off to be with Maximoff.”

“And you said yourself that Vision is not JARVIS,” Loki argued. “He is his own person, he has his own feelings. JARVIS would not have abandoned you like that—”

“No, he wouldn’t have,” Tony agreed. “But I guess I abandoned him, didn’t I? I left him to fight all on his own. He was deep in the internet, fighting against Ultron and I didn’t even know. I left him isolated and in the dark all by himself and I—” Tony’s voice cracked, his words cutting off with a sob. His hands curled back into Loki’s shirt, and he just _wished_ that he could– he wished that—

Loki didn’t ask, this time, but he did move slowly as he pulled Tony back into a hug. Tony melted into it once more, a whine tearing from his throat.

“I miss him,” he whimpered, his words somewhat muffled against Loki’s chest. “So much.”

Loki let out a sigh, and Tony felt it as he pressed a kiss to the top of Tony’s head. “Elskan mín,” he whispered. “You are the bravest man that I know. To miss such a good friend as JARVIS is not unusual, nor something to be looked down upon. Of course you miss him.”

Tony shuddered as Loki pulled him a little closer, held him a little tighter. Just for a moment, he let himself fall apart, let Loki be the thing that was holding him together while he shattered to pieces which couldn’t ever quite be put back the same way. Because the hole which had been torn through Tony’s chest felt impossible to fill. JARVIS was gone, he wouldn’t ever come back. And nothing would ever be the same as it was. 

Tony knew that this wasn’t what JARVIS would want, he didn’t need Loki or Pepper or Rhodey or Happy or _anyone else_ to tell him so. And most of the time, he tried. God, did he try. He worked hard with FRIDAY to make JARVIS proud, to make sure the world JARVIS had left behind would be worthy of his sacrifice. There may not be a day that Tony didn’t think of JARVIS, but there _were_ days that were better. Days when he didn’t feel sad.

But that didn’t mean that he’d ever forget.

And sometimes… sometimes, he just needed to grieve.


End file.
